Beck Lets Fans Create Newest Album via Social Media

Beck is taking its grungy, alternative sound and putting it in the palms of fans’ hands, and we mean that very literally.

In what could be the most innovative and modern approach ever, the band, who currently boasts a dozen albums, is looking to make lucky 13 incomparable to the rest in that its listeners can submit their own recorded versions of what they think the album should sound like. The “album” was released on December 11 as only sheets of music and those who wish to submit can do so via SongReader.net, which accepts either YouTube videos or SoundCloud files.

These songs – 20 in total – were reportedly composed over the last nine years by the band. So what better way to please their fans than by letting them decide how they want the music to sound? After being on a relatively long hiatus since its last album, “Modern Guilt” released back in 2008, the band is making an awesome, modern comeback – no pun intended.

Mashable reported that after the sheet music was released, the band put out an open call for people to record their interpretations of the songs and submit them via social media platforms. You’ve got to admit this sounds pretty awesome, but only something a band held in high-regard could pull off.

Social media – and even the Internet, for that matter – are relatively fresh concepts, yet they continue to change and impact essentially every aspect of life – from what we eat, wear and do. For example, since its conception in 2005, YouTube has grown so much that as of January 2012, four billion videos were streamed on a daily basis, with the company saying on its official website that it “has hundreds of millions of users from around the world.”

Last month, Twitter stated that it had surpassed 200 million monthly active users – a number that easily doubled from September 2011’s 100 million – and generates over 340 million tweets per day.

If you hop onto YouTube right now, you’ll see endless submissions of the band’s recently released songs including, “Just Noise,” “Eyes that Say I Love You,” and “Old Shanghai.”

Interestingly enough, in an interview today with Mashable, Jordan Bass, who worked with Beck on the project and published Song Reader, the tool used to bring life to Beck’s music, said that when the group first began discussing this way back in 2004, YouTube wasn’t even in existence. This just goes to show how incredible of a force both the Internet and social media have become over the last few years alone.

Check out this submission below for Beck’s “Just Noise.”

“The participatory-performance aspect of music way back when — the spirit that Beck was trying to pay tribute to — ended up having its own kind of rebirth, by way of the Internet,” Bass adds.

While the news hasn’t gone full blown mainstream yet, something which Bass admits in the interview, it’s sure to pick up speed, as word travels fast, but YouTube videos travel faster.